Vinita Chhabra
About
Former IES employee at NCER
Associated IES Content
Civics Education and Social Studies
Civics Education and Social Studies supports research to improve learners' knowledge, skills, and attitudes to understand complex social and economic issues.
Literacy
The Literacy topic supports research on the range of English language-based skills required for learning. U.S. students must develop fluency not only in reading and writing in English but also in speaking and listening in English, and they must be able to apply these skills across multiple contexts, including classrooms and online.
Grant
YOUTH STAND UP: Investigating the Impact of a Critically Relevant, Media-Rich Civic Action Unit on Eighth Graders' Civic Identity and Efficacy
U.S. students demonstrate low proficiency in civic knowledge as measured by national assessments, and young people, especially those from historically marginalized communities, may be under-participate in civic life. In this project, the researchers will develop and test Youth Stand Up, a media-rich eighth-grade civic action curriculum intervention in which students analyze video case studies of near-peer civic leaders, research a civic issue in their community, and develop an action plan to...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A230393
Grant
More Than Just Safety: School Security Measures and Academic, Behavioral, and Social Outcomes
In this study, researchers will examine schools' use of security measures and their association with a variety of academic, behavioral, and social outcomes. A major priority for schools is to keep students and school personnel safe, and a variety of security measures are used to maintain safety. However, little research has examined the outcomes associated with these common practices. Many critics are concerned about issues of equity, suggesting that school security measures have particularl...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A220478
Grant
Sustaining Pre-K Gains Into Elementary School: Exploring the Role of School-Based Pre-K in Equity, Continuity, and Collaboration
High-quality pre-kindergarten (pre-k) programs increase school readiness and later academic, behavioral, and social outcomes, particularly among students from minoritized and marginalized groups. However, the initial benefits of pre-k do not reliably persist as children progress through elementary school. The purpose of this project is to explore school-based pre-k and the role it plays in promoting vertical alignment and sustaining student pre-k gains on a holistic range of outcomes (e.g., ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A220472
Grant
US History Through Young People's Eyes: An Efficacy Study of Mission US
Mission US is an award-winning series of interactive games that is available at no cost for students in middle and high school to increase their knowledge of U.S. history. In the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 15% of students in grade 8 performed at or above the basic level of proficiency in U.S. history. One way to engage students in learning history is to create history learning resources that are designed to be relevant and appealing to young people's intere...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210223
Grant
Building Students' Environmental Knowledge and Engagement With Local Government Through Civic Science
In this project, the research team will develop and pilot a high school curriculum that integrates civic with scientific literacy to engage students with local governments and community-based organizations to impact environmental policy. Little attention has been paid to the integration of civic and scientific literacy; yet this nexus and skill set is the kind of civic preparation younger generations need to make informed decisions about environmental problems. Similarly, in civic educatio...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210221
Grant
Reading Together: Building Family Literacy Through AI-Enabled Tutoring
The Reading Together project team will develop and test the impact of a scalable, personalized program designed to tackle the intergenerational cycle of reading difficulties and substantially improve the reading abilities of young students. COVID-19 disruptions to schooling have made this need to improve the reading skills of emergent readers even more urgent. Reading Together (1) enables parents or other primary caregivers of kindergarten-aged children to help their emerging readers develop...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305T210038
Grant
Zoom: Innovative Detailed Examination of Digital vs. Paper Reading
In the era of COVID-19 and digital learning, IES has identified areas of needed research including exploring how reading with digital devices relates to learning outcomes like reading comprehension. This project team address this need by building understandings of in-the-moment behaviors readers experience (explored via eye-gaze, emotional response, digital behaviors, and highlighting) when reading on a screen or reading on paper to answer questions, which is similar to many classroom and te...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210347
Grant
Connecting Classrooms to Congress: Fostering Informed Civic Engagement via Online Deliberative Town Halls
In this project, the research team will develop and test a social studies intervention, centered on an online Deliberative Town Hall, to engage high school seniors and teachers directly with their member of Congress. The intervention is designed to embed a democratic experience within a real-world activity to motivate students to deepen their understanding of a controversial policy topic, and to develop their capacity for analytical thinking, argumentation, and writing.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210359
Grant
Initial Efficacy Evaluation of an Action Civics Program
Generation Citizen is a fully developed peer-to-peer action civics intervention designed to engage middle and high school students in real-world problem-solving activities to practice civic learning, motivation, and engagement. Generation Citizen reaches 25,000 students annually. Although research demonstrates that young people care about political issues, young people remain skeptical of the political process and may lack the necessary skills to participate as citizens. More research is nee...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210335
Grant
Development and Validation of Complementary Measures of Early Writing: Teacher Practices and Child Outcomes
In this project, researchers will develop and validate complementary measures of early writing assessing both teacher practice (tWRITE) and child development (cWRITE). The tWRITE and cWRITE, together with the iWRITE, an intervention for teachers to enhance early writing development based on a previous IES funded study, will form the WRITE system. The innovative development of two assessments that are theoretically aligned and empirically linked will provide valid and reliable data on childre...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210122
Grant
Writing Across Levels of Language (WALL) in First Grade
The purpose of this project is to revise and pilot test a first-grade writing program, called Writing Across Levels of Language (WALL). This project builds on the findings of an IES funded Exploration project (Investigating the Impact of Classroom Instruction and Literacy Skills on Writing Achievement in First Grade). First-grade students struggle with the demands of writing, making it difficult for them to meet most state writing standards. Students have been found to struggle with writing ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210202
Grant
Catch and Release: Predicting Maintenance of Tier 2 Reading Intervention Effects
In this project, the research team will examine the extent to which students' pre-intervention literacy skills and their engagement during Tier 1 literacy instruction predict their (a) text reading fluency during a Tier 2 reading intervention and (b) text reading fluency after successfully exiting the Tier 2 intervention. Little attention has been paid to students' maintenance of reading intervention effects generally, particularly for students who are initially successful but identified as ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210027
Grant
Writing Architect: A Web-based Tool for Adapting Writing Instruction to Meet Students' Needs
The purpose of this project is to develop a tool, the Writing Architect, that will assist teachers in connecting evidence-based writing instruction with students' needs as identified in a digital classroom written composition assessment. The goal is to improve late elementary students' written composition in response to text (informational writing) and to use assessment results more effectively for instructional purposes.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210061
Grant
Validating Automated Measures of Student Writing and the Student Writing Process to Help Classroom Teachers Implement Formative Assessment Practices
The research team will develop and validate an open-source, digital formative writing assessment dashboard for middle school language arts classrooms, exploiting advances in automated writing evaluation and writing process analysis to identify actionable metrics that teachers can use to identify next steps in instruction. Current literature indicates that writing instruction is most effective when teachers use formative assessment techniques to track student performance while the students ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A210297
Grant
Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of Writing Interventions for Students in Grades K to 5
For this project, the research team will conduct a research synthesis, including a comprehensive meta-analysis, to explore what writing interventions are effective on what writing outcomes, for whom, and under what conditionsin kindergarten through grade 5. Findings will provide guidance for developing new writing interventions and informing professional development for teachers. Furthermore, the project will offer empirical evidence to support research to practice efforts that will improve ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A200363
Grant
Project GROW
In this project, the research team will design and test an innovative, feasible, and promising whole-class read-aloud intervention that can improve, or "grow", kindergartners' knowledge of taught academic vocabulary, their generalized vocabulary knowledge, listening and reading comprehension, and phonological awareness. A secondary goal of the intervention is to enhance social-emotional learning (SEL) competence. The research team will select books with engaging illustrations of targeted voc...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A200397
Grant
Developing Theory- and Evidence-based Oral Language Intervention: Integrated Multi-Component Oral Development for Literacy (iMODEL)
In this project, the research team will develop and examine the feasibility, usability, and potential promise of a multi-component oral language comprehension intervention called iMODEL (Integrated Multi-component Oral Development for Language and Literacy). iMODEL is designed for small group instruction for kindergartners with below-average oral language skills. This intervention targets multiple skills that contribute to listening comprehension such as foundational knowledge (vocabulary, g...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A200312
Grant
A Comprehensive Measure of Reading Fluency: Uniting and Scaling Accuracy, Rate, and Prosody
The research team will develop and validate an automated scoring system to measure, unite, and scale the rate, accuracy, and prosody of oral reading fluency (ORF) for students in grades 2 to 4. Research has shown that prosody explains variance in reading comprehension beyond rate and accuracy; however, current ORF assessments neglect the measurement of prosody. This project can increase the reliability and validity of decisions made from ORF scores, resulting in better identification of stud...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A200018
Grant
Project Citizen Research Program
In this study, researchers will evaluate the efficacy of Project Citizen for improving outcomes in middle and high school level civics. Project Citizen is a widely used civics intervention. Students identify and research a public policy problem in their community, evaluate alternative solutions, and create an action plan to enlist local or state authorities to adopt their proposed policy. Prior research demonstrates the promise of Project Citizen to improve students' civic skills under resea...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A190360
Grant
PAWS: Efficacy
The purpose of this project is to test the efficacy of Peer Assisted Writing Strategies (PAWS), an empirically based writing intervention to improve the writing outcomes of kindergarten children. PAWS was developed and evaluated with an IES goal 2 grant. PAWS is a fully developed writing instruction and has demonstrated evidence of promise and feasibility. Study results from that grant showed PAWS students outperformed students in the control classrooms in medium performing schools on letter...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A190168
Grant
Multiple-choice Online Causal Comprehension Assessment Refinement: Achieving Better Discrimination via Experimental Item Types and Adaptive Testing
This project will develop and refine a computer-adaptive version of MOCCA (Multiple-choice Online Cloze Comprehension Assessment), an existing reading comprehension measure for third- through fifth-grade readers. MOCCA helps distinguish between students who make one of two common comprehension errors. Students with weak comprehension skills tend either to paraphrase (rephrase prior information from the text but do not generate missing information) or to make lateral connections (make an elab...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A190393
Grant
Exploring and Assessing the Development of Students' Argumentation Skills
This project will identify the malleable factors that predict the development of middle-school students' argumentative writing skills by exploring the students' abilities to generate oral and written arguments. Understanding and writing arguments is an important but difficult skill to acquire. However, research suggests that well-structured interactions, such as guided critical discussions, can help middle-grade students develop these skills, but it is not clear which student and instruction...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A190242
Grant
PurpleState 2.0: Investigating the Impact of a Virtual Internship on Argumentative Reading and Writing in Civic Education
In this project, researchers will develop and pilot an online intervention (Purple State) to promote high school students' civic skills. Many young people lack skills for informed citizenship, including the ability to critically read, comprehend, and evaluate information, especially when accessed through social media.
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A190476
Grant
Malleable Instructional Factors Associated with Beginning Word Reading
The purpose of this project is to explore how explicit training of orthographic knowledge (i.e., knowledge of conventions for written language that includes spelling, capitalization, emphasis) and cognitive flexibility (the ability to switch between thinking about two different concepts) may support kindergarten and first grade students who are at risk for word learning difficulties. Although access to high-quality materials that show the connections between sounds and written words is impor...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A180005
Grant
Reading RULES in Kindergarten: Development of a Small-Group Intervention to Support Emergent Reading and Writing
In this project, researchers will revise and extend Reading RULES for Kindergarten (RRK), a small-group literacy intervention aimed at improving kindergarten students' word study and text reading. Early literacy skills are important predictors of later reading and writing achievement, but students enter kindergarten with varying levels of literacy skills and abilities. To date, there are few interventions that provide integrated reading and writing instruction for kindergarten students. The ...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A180094
Grant
Sense-Making in the Disciplines: Supporting Reading and Argumentation in Literature and History
High school students are expected to read and understand text in multiple content areas content areas that require discipline-specific ways of reading, interpreting, and conveying information. Additionally, many high school students still need assistance with fundamental comprehension skills. In this project, researchers will refine and expand a digital tool called Sense Making in the Disciplines (SMD) to support 8th and 9th graders' close analytic reading and argumentation in literature and...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A180463
Grant
Factors Affecting Comprehension by Teens During Online Reading in Science: The FACTORS Project
The purpose of this project is to explore factors that contribute to online reading success in science for adolescents. Online reading is becoming more and more important for students' success in school and beyond, but research shows that many students cannot successfully read online or conduct other types of online research activities such as evaluating the trustworthiness of online sources of information. In addition, a separate achievement gap appears to exist for online reading as a func...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A170370
Grant
Reaping the Rewards of the Reading for Understanding Initiative
In this project, the National Academy of Education (NAEd) established a working committee charged with developing insights and implications from the Reading for Understanding (RFU) initiative, and to ensure that what has been learned from this initiative is beneficial to education research and practice
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305U160002
Grant
Exploration of Writing Instruction for Kindergarten Children
The purpose of this project is to examine writing instruction for kindergarten students and to explore the relationship between writing instruction and writing outcomes for these students. Writing is critical for success in both school and career. The Common Core State Standards emphasize the importance of writing and outlines the skills students at each grade level need to accomplish, and provide a roadmap for writing instruction. However, little is known about what effective writing instru...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A160253
Grant
Exploration of Automated Writing Strategy Instruction for Adolescent Writings Using The Writing Pal
The Writing Pal (W-Pal) provides writing strategy instruction, game-based writing practice, essay writing practice, and formative feedback to adolescent writers. The purpose of this project is to explore how components of the fully developed W-Pal are related to student writing strategy acquisition and writing proficiency. Researchers will examine the extent to which students' strategy acquisition and interactions with the W-Pal are influenced by individual differences such as prior writi...
Federal funding program:
Award number:
R305A120707
PI Meeting
2011 Principal Investigators Conference: September 7, 2011
The National Center for Education Research (NCER), in the U.S. Department of Education's Institute of Education Sciences (IES), sponsored a 1-day IES Principal Investigators (PI) Meeting on September 7, 2011. The PI meeting included grantees from various research grant topic areas and provided opportunities for focused discussions on topics of general interest for investigators as they complete project activities.
Sep 07, 2011
12:00AM - 11:59PM EDT
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